


So Pretty The Looking Glass Cracked

by gala_apples



Series: An Alphabet of Teen Wolf Crossovers [13]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Bisexual Lydia Martin, Elves, F/F, First Kiss, Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Jack started this whole thing Lydia was beautiful. Now she knows she’s beautiful in a way meant for Halloweentown. Her looks make the boys think of her because she gives them nightmares of being devoured whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Pretty The Looking Glass Cracked

Lydia is not one of the first citizens to sign up for Jack’s task list. She’s not surprised that Scott and Stiles are. Those two idiots are always up for an adventure. They’re almost as bad as Lock Shock and Barrel, the only difference being they don’t tend to take advice from that no account Boogie. Heck, Scott even had a line in the song sung at the Town Hall meeting November first. 

Scott at least makes sense. He’s got his werewolf strength to help him put together some perfectly gruesome toys. Stiles is a different matter. Unlike the Mayor, whose dual personalities can utilise his body equally, Stiles and his dark half can’t. Stiles and his Void both half occupy the same space, overlapping areas like noxious fogs. Only one gets to be corporeal at a time. Stiles might want to delightfully frighten young girls and boys and beasts but the Void isn’t half as considerate.

She comes around. _Everyone_ comes around. Even Jackson, who’s tasked with spraying some venom into bottles so a few lucky kids can paralyse their friends. Even Isaac manages to escape the many eyed gaze of his father and join the effort, using all of his tentacles to knit some scarves. The only person in the whole town who doesn’t get into the Christmas spirit is Sally. Not because her father/creator won’t let her. That would be understandable. Dr Finkelstein is incredibly controlling, and Sally can only poison him so many times a week to get away before he stops falling for it. The problem with the hypothesis is Dr Finkelstein is creating what Jack called reindeer, the skeletal creatures that pull Sandy Claws’s sled. He’s very much excited for the event, though it’s hard to tell anticipation from a grimace on his face. Sally just... doesn’t care.

Honestly, it’s kind of a shock. Nevermind merely participating, Sally should be clamoring to be Jack’s right hand woman. Heck, she can even unstitch the limb and leave it with him if he needs it. Sally’s desperately in love with Jack, has been for a long time. Everyone knows it, besides maybe Jack. If it was Lydia, she’d mark Christmas as the perfect opportunity to integrate herself. Instead she’s nowhere to be seen.

Not that she’s alone in her separation. Not tonight.

Most of Halloweentown is celebrating Christmas Eve near Town Hall. The witches have spelled a bunch of cauldrons to show Jack’s sled and Christmastown. Lydia’s not there, having chosen to take a walk in the woods instead. 

One of her reasons is very vocal, the one everyone knows. Jackson and Matt are there. Lydia doesn’t regret breaking up with her scaly, yellow eyed beauty of a boyfriend. Nor does she regret beginning to date him in the first place. It’s just been made abundantly clear over a period of months that Jackson’s first priority is Jackson, except for when he’s taking Matt’s orders. Lydia knows she deserves someone who loves her the way Jackson loves himself and Matt. Until she finds that being she’s not about to be in the same location as them, alone, and let them think they got the better deal. It’s not in her nature to lose.

The other reason is more private. For Jack, Christmas has been his rejuvenation and with that his salvation. It’s hard to be Pumpkin King when you’re so bored of it you could cry. For most of the town it’s been a fun creative outlet. For Lydia Christmas is the bittersweet knowledge that there are beautiful things all across the worlds, and some of those things are completely inaccessible to her. Knowing it is enough. Seeing the span and breadth of it would be too much.

Because Lydia is alone deep amongst the trees she’s the first to see her. Jogging through the spiky trees is a being. Probably a girl, but it’s always best to not assume until you ask. Gender is complicated, or at least it is among monsters. The longer Lydia looks the more she doesn’t want to look away. Her stomach is curling. It feels like she’s eaten a snake, despite knowing that she hasn’t done that for months. Her palm gets sweaty around the stick of her mask. The jogger is short, plump without being fat. From head to toe ze’s colourful. It’s not just that ze is golden cheeked or carrying a green bag or wearing a red dress, it’s that the saturation is high. The colour of zer dress is a hundred times stronger than the tint of the blood the vampires drink, or Lock’s costume.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” ze counters.

“My name’s Lydia. I’m a girl screamer from Halloweentown.”

“I’m a girl elf from Christmastown. Allison,” she adds after a beat. “I’m here to rescue Santa.”

“You needed a whole sack for that?” It’s not an interrogation, it’s a question. Lydia is curious. It’s possible ‘elf’ means inventor or similar in Christmastown, and Allison’s plan involves staying physically distant.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Lydia can’t cross her arms for a power stance, that would mean lowering her mask. But she can put a hand on her hip, and widen her stance. She doesn’t want to scare the nice Christmas girl, doesn’t want to wrap her bright colours in jagged shadows and claws. But she does want Allison to stay and talk, and if she has to suggest her power to make that happen, so be it. “Tell me the truth and I’ll answer something you want to know.”

Allison makes a face. Lydia doesn’t have the words to describe it. It’s like babies before they learn to howl, or puppies before they bite a finger off. Small and not frightening and like you want to hug it.

“So maybe my back up plan is staying here. I needed to make sure I wouldn’t have to come back for anything.”

That makes no sense at all. Lydia frowns, eyebrows furrowing so low they nearly meet the seam of her mask. “What? Why? Why on the jackolantern’s glow would you want to stay here?”

“Everything in Christmastown is sweet and cute and boring. Someone here thought it was a good idea to kidnap Santa. They thought it, and then they _did_ it. That would never happen in Christmastown. Ever. Even Rudolph, the greatest rebel of the old days, wound up sucked into the toys and stockings routine.” Allison, who had started to pace with her words, abruptly stops. She whirls back to face Lydia, skirt flaring like a vampire’s cape. “What did you eat today? No, really. Tell me.”

“A wild rat and nightshade stew.” She made enough to feed an army. Or herself for a week. The second option is the only real option. Lydia ate the stew alone in her home, of course. She’ll eat every bowl alone in her home. No one sees her eat. To eat she has to put her mask down.

“See. That’s exactly what I’m talking about! The spiciest, wildest thing we have is ginger, and we bake it into cookies and cover it with icing. I can’t stand it for one more year. One more day!”

The world itself punctuates Allison’s fervor with Jack’s sled shooting into the sky. It’s a spectacle, and Lydia has no doubt that everyone near town hall will be cheering. Stiles and Scott are probably howling to the stars.

“Looks like you’re too late. Do you want to sit and talk more?”

It’s not entirely the truth. Wherever Lock Shock and Barrel have taken Santa -not Sandy, apparently- the man still needs to be rescued. Especially if the little brats took him to Oogie, which seems likely. But Lydia is selfish. She doesn’t want Allison to go. Besides, it’s justifiable. If Santa is powerful enough to deliver presents to thousands of kids in one night he’s powerful enough to get away from that sack of bugs.

Allison sits neatly on a fallen tree, legs crossed at the ankle. She is rich and decadent against the nearly black bark. Lydia can’t stop herself from sitting beside the elf, though she at least refrains from touching her gorgeous skin or stroking her beautiful clothes.

But Allison must be at least half as interested in her surroundings as Lydia is in the sight beside her, because after a moment the gleaming girl asks, “does everyone in Halloweentown wear a mask? Should I get one?”

“Please don’t!”, bursts out of Lydia before she can reign herself in.

“What?”

“Some people like wearing them. Some people have to wear them. But no one underneath is pretty. You are. You shouldn’t hide your face.”

“I bet you’re pretty.”

Lydia shakes her head, careful to keep her mask firmly pressed to the lower half of her face. “I’m a monster. They just happen to like that here.”

“I _came_ here.”

“I know. But you said it yourself, there’s nothing nasty from your place to prepare yourself. My face will be the first horrible thing you ever see and that means it’ll always be the worst.” Lydia doesn’t think she could stand that.

Allison doesn’t take no for an answer. Instead of leaving well enough alone she starts in on questions. “Well it has to be mouth related, obviously. Do you have shark teeth? Needle teeth? Two rows? More? Or none? Do you have two mouths or just little slits for words? Bloody spit? Uncontrollable drool? Slime?”

It’s obvious she’s going to go on forever. Lydia doesn’t want to scare her away. As much as Allison is too clean and pristine for this town Lydia can’t bare the idea of her going home. Going _away_. But sitting here listening to Allison imagine her in a hundred different horrifying ways is nearly as painful. Since she won’t stop, Lydia’s going to have to make it stop. She clenches her hand and tells the bright beauty the truth about what draws in all the boys attention.

“My jaw is stitched on.”

“What?”

“I told you I was a screamer. The first time I screamed I did it so forcefully my jaw ripped off. Now I have stitches I can undo if I want to take it off again.”

Allison reaches out. She nearly touches the mask before her hand draws back and lands on Lydia’s curled fingers instead. “So you hide it?”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Show me?”

Lydia makes the leap. She closes her eyes and hopes on the jackolantern’s glow that Allison won’t scream or cry, and lowers her stick wielding hand. The December air is cold on the normally concealed skin, and the ribbons holding her face together rustle in the light breeze.

Allison doesn’t recoil. Eyes still closed Lydia can’t see her reaction, but she doesn’t hear the sounds that mean Allison is running for the doors in the trees, running for bold glinting colour and away from sepia toned horror. Lydia stays frozen on the fallen tree and waits for the moment to combust into flame. That’s not what happens. Instead Allison runs her fingers along the seam where her jaw splits in two. Each bit of skin Allison touches in the valleys between the pale yellow ribbons make Lydia’s heart clench. Allison is so much more gentle and explorative than Jackson ever was. Allison touches her like she’s a present, something wrapped too daintily to risk ruin.

“The ribbon matches the mask.”

Lydia’s mask is white satin. Or, it was. It quickly aged to grey-yellow, the way everything in Halloweentown does. Mother never said she could only have one, but Lydia hasn’t changed in a long time. What would be the point, when the smooth beaded fabric is already the best option to contrast with her hair and complexion?

“I try to make it blend in,” Lydia explains, wanting nothing more than to hold the hand of the fingers that have caressed her so sweetly. “It’s sort of a useless gesture. Everyone knows what’s underneath anyway.”

“Would it hurt you if I kissed you?”

“You’re from Christmastown,” Lydia says, meaning so many things.

“I wish was from here,” Allison answers both things said and unsaid. 

Lydia leans in and presses her lips to Allison’s. If she’s not careful her jaw will shift. Allison is worth the risk.


End file.
